Traditionally, cosmetics have been packaged in containers such as bottles, jars, flasks, boxes, compacts and tubes. More recently, cosmetics have been placed in sampling devices for use in magazine inserts, postcards, department store catalogs and billing cycles and other sales promotion vehicles, and have been used as store handouts. The sampling devices contain a small quantity of cosmetic or a substance simulating a cosmetic which can be removed and applied to the skin by a consumer.
Cosmetic samplers have been manufactured in the past on web equipment using (a) flexography printing of the cosmetics, (b) a bump plate or (c) continuous extrusion.
Currently, cosmetic sampling devices are produced using silk-screen printing in a printing environment. This current method cannot be used in conjunction with a carrier liner and pressure sensitive backing. This means that such a cosmetic sample can only be affixed to another substrate by hot melt dispensers or by hand. These processes are relatively slow and expensive. Additionally, the silk screen printing method itself is relatively economically unfeasible; it requires multiple manufacturing steps to produce a finished product.
One need that exists is mass producing cosmetic samples at an inexpensive price. Cosmetics are typically dry or cohesive powders, or oily or emulsion-type dispersion or easily meltable pastes which have a very defined appearance and feel. Any attempt to apply the cosmetic to a substrate requires that the cosmetic not bleed or leak or stain in the substrate, nor can the cosmetic itself be altered in its own final color, feel or appearance. To be printable, the cosmetic must be provided in a fluidized or amorphous paste form.
A method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,072,831 provides a transfer layer of a colored, heavy, waxy, oily material, removable by fingertip and spreadable by skin, in forming an advertising sampler. However, this sampler is made from a composition which is intended to provide only a color match to that of the genuine cosmetic product advertised. The sampler does not contain the actual cosmetic product advertised. A need exists to form a cosmetic sampler encompassing the actual cosmetic advertised. Additionally, a method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,925,667 provides a sampler formed using microencapsulated cosmetic capsules. Such microencapsulation enables the cosmetic to adhere to the substrate while still maintaining the desirable characteristics of the cosmetic. Col. 3, lines 41-46. However, such method does not teach the use of a non-microencapsulated cosmetic in a sampler.
Additionally, a method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,192,386 teaches application of cosmetics to a treated substrate using screen printing. This sampler does not utilize bulk thin film application, i.e., non-printing technology. A need exists to produce cosmetic samplers using non-printing technology.